Tag Archives: contemporary

Wowzer! Like many other people I loved We Were Liars but Genuine Fraud is something else!

The first thing that strikes you about this book is that it starts at the end. Jule, an orphan is living it up in a posh hotel. She’s rich, alone and feisty. But also a little bit mysterious and deadly. Slowly, chapter by chapter the novel begins to go back in time and the reader finds out more about Jule and her friend Imogen and the plot gets even thicker. A friendship woven with secrets and lies and a couple of murders thrown in for good measure.

I loved the way this novel worked backwards, it’s a very skilful way of writing and a great approach to keeping the intrigue going, we know the ending from the beginning and now it’s just a matter of finding out the how’s and why’s.

There were definitely some ‘gotcha’ moments as well as that brilliant moment where pieces start fitting together and you’re sat there thinking ‘wow, you devious bitch.’ But I also loved that there is such a strong female presence in this book along with very blurred lines on who is the ‘good guy’ and who is the ‘bad guy’.

Overall Genuine Fraud is an unputdownable novel with one of the best examples of an unreliable narrator that i have ever read.

Thank you to the lovely people at Ebury publishing for my review copy of Artemis.

Artemis is the new novel by Andy Weir, best known for his debut novel The Martian which became a film featuring Matt Damon. Artemis continues the space theme but this time it’s on the moon. Jazz lives on Artemis, the first town on the moon, and has done since she was 6 years old. The worst thing imaginable for her would be deportation back to her native Saudi Arabia with nothing but gravity sickness to look forward to. But despite this, she’s running the biggest smuggling operation on Artemis because it’s really important that Jazz gets a certain amount of money for a certain something she wants to buy. Unfortunately, she just can’t seem to help getting into trouble.

This novel is seriously fast paced, I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump recently but Artemis brought me right back out of it. There’s excitement, a particular form of dry humour that I love, and some kickass feminism thrown in. Andy Weir certainly shows his skill writing a first person narrative from the perspective of someone of the opposite sex.

The character of Jazz and, in fact the whole novel in general is really engaging and captivating, I laughed a lot and it’s clear that a lot of research was done to make the Moon town as ‘realistic’ as possible. A real modern day adventure novel! I loved it!

Thank you to Netgalley, Bookouture and Kierney Scott for my ARC of the latest thriller to hit the shelves of the British Public.

I’ve heard a lot about this novel particularly on Twitter and I was keen to give it a try and see if it lived up to the hype. And my answer is a resounding yes.

What I liked most about this thriller is that the main character Jess Bishop is extremely flawed, the most flawed detective since Sherlock Holmes himself. Even better, she’s female. With a love of strong red wine, an attitude to kick ass and a slight sex addiction, I absolutely loved Jess Bishop. I loved her whole attitude to casual sex and her refusal to feel ashamed, not only that but her determination to defend other women and prevent them from being shamed too. This is such an important message to get across in fiction and it’s great to see it applied in a genre which has, for a long time been seen as a man’s world.

Not only do I fully support the badass female detective, the storyline was fresh and original too, a murderer and torturer who stalks women across borders, disappears in the night without a trace and seems to be leading everyone back to Jess herself. There is of course a wonderfully twisted and mysterious background history for Jess as well which I never saw coming. Although I did kind of work out the twist it didn’t spoil it as it was just a waiting game then for the characters to realise too. Working out the twist doesn’t ever spoil a good thriller, it only enhances the suspense and anticipation.

I’m a huge fan of Dan Brown’s Books. I’ve read everything he’s published and can’t understand people who think the books are rubbish. They are so much more than just a story, they contain a wealth of information particularly about religion, symbols and science. Not to mention technology. And Origin is no different.

Robert Langdon and his Mickey Mouse watch travel to Spain this time, to a presentation held by Robert’s ex student and friend Edmond Kirsch. Kirsch has announced that he plans to release a presentation which will answer the two fundamental questions people ask. Where did we come from? And Where are we going?

His discovery threatens to rock the worlds of science and religion and change the way people view the world. But a perilous and chaotic moment prevent Edmond from revealing his discovery and the answers to his questions. Instead it’s up to Langdon and the museums beautiful director Ambra to find the presentation and reveal it to the world. With a little help from the mysterious Winston.

Origin is action packed as the other novels in this series were but I felt that; perhaps in reflection of Langdon not getting any younger, the pace was slightly slower. Other than one dramatic moment he doesn’t have his usual escapades! Nevertheless, the story really intrigued me, as the two questions intrigued the fictional viewers, they also intrigue the reader who becomes deseperate to read on in order to get the answers.

I loved the character of Langdon just as much as I always do and especially the amount I feel that I learn from these novels, while they are fictional, there’s also a lot of interesting fact finding going on in there too!

Eeeeesh! This was so good. I love Wonder Woman and also Greek mythology so obviously a book about the Amazon Wonder Woman was always going to be on my TBR. Anyway, I finally got round to reading it today after buying it in September and here is my review!

Wonder Woman is such a powerful novel. It’s the first book I’ve read by Leigh Bardugo although I have all her other novels on my tbr. I was expecting in all honesty for the storyline to follow that of the film (I never read synopsis’) but it was a little different and equally as brilliant!

Diana lives on the island of Themyscira with her Amazon sisters, desperate to prove herself as a true Amazon she intends to win the annual race, but things go awray when she disobeys one of the fundamental rules of the Amazons and rescues a girl from a shipwreck. Soon she embarks on an adventure which takes her to New York and into the World of Man.

An epic journey unfolds as Diana discovers that Alia is a warbringer, descended from Helen of Troy and destined to bring war and destruction to the world. That is if Diana can’t get her to a sacred spring where her Warbringer tendencies can be cured. But first she gets dragged into New York society, parties, drugstores and dirty motel rooms.

I love how Diana is portrayed as both incredibly fierce and incredibly vulnerable. I love that the main characters are not just female but fiesty, kick ass females with great attitude. Nim was easily one of my favourite characters. And of course Diana is extra badass when she discovers her own abilities.

This is the first novel I’ve truly been engrossed in, in a while! I almost missed my stop on the train!

Thank you to Netgalley, Victoria Namkung and Griffith Moon for my arc of These Violent Delights.

The novel’s premise is that a young woman interning for a newspaper in Los Angeles decides to write an essay to publish in the paper about a teacher at her elite, private, all girls school made innapropriate advances towards her when she was a 15 year old student.

Following her article, other victims come forward and a full scale investigation is opened.

This novel doesn’t read as a novel, now that’s not a criticism, it was still very enjoyable but the way it was presented, and I think this may be to do with the fact the author is a journalist first and foremost, was like reading a non fiction ‘true life’ book or a feature in a magazine or newspaper. Nothing was forced if that makes sense, there was no real world building, there was one relationship created and that was it. The rest was a collection of articles, statements and conversations which reinstated the fact. But in all honesty I think this was the perfect way to put this story across. People need to be aware that the issues raised in this novel are real and take action. I wish this book had been around when I was a teenage girl.

It’s that time again! Yay! I really love doing the wrap up and getting the chance to look back on what I’ve read this month, what I’ve enjoyed etc. This month I read 22 books at a total of 8,149 pages which is less books but more pages than usual so still a win. I’m very competitive with myself in terms of how many books I read each month, but I seem to be averaging at around 20-25 books a month which is really good. Anyway, to the books! I won’t write a long post about each as there’s just too many but reviews for pretty much all of them can be found on my blog or goodreads if you’d like to know more.